====

Sometimes I wish I could fly

Like a bird up in the sky

Closer to my home

 

Sometimes I feel like freedom is near

Sometimes I feel like freedom is here

Sometimes I feel like freedom is so near

But we’re so far from home

Van Morrison< Sometimes I feel like a motherless child>

====

Both home and freedom are tricky topics to discuss even though they seem like they should be relatively simple. Freedom to one person is an infringement on another’s and home is where I say it is, not what you may suggest it is. That said. Let me try this. Home is where you find true freedom. It is where you can be free to be you and do what you want. I have stated in the past (a) the world is thy ship and not thy home and (b) I am a nomad and ‘home’ to me is wherever I have my books (I did so under the guise of this is what offers me stability). But that was a bit shallow of me to suggest because the truth is home is where your genuine self resides. The ‘you’ that exists without any veneer that the external world demands. My books are, at its shallowest, escapism. It permits me to escape the external world’s demands and maybe, at its best, lets me navigate who I am and who I want to be. But this isn’t about me, this is about self, home and freedom.

In my mind, here is where home and freedom has become a trickier proposition for us – the disparity between who we really like to be and who we are in some situations has widened and increased. Here is what I mean. If we are honest, work (business) has always encouraged some specific characteristics whether they be genuine to who we are at our core or not. Tt encourages some ruthless competitiveness (on occasion at minimum) and identifiable confidence (discernable to others) and certainly a large emphasis, continuously, on results and even each business ‘culture’ demands some aspects just in how they suggest going about the business of doing business (and this varies by business). Its kind of the game, and games, one plays to fit in within a business. They are not always the things we naturally would be, or do, when we have the freedom to relax at home. But then, in addition, there is social media. Social media, for most people, is an asymmetrical ‘non relax’ game. What I mean by that is while someone certainly will have some consistency between a Facebook, Instagram, tiktok, whatever, the truth is that the ‘public game’ is played a bit differently on each platform. Each platform, and each ‘tribe’ you interact with on social media tugs at, and out, a specific part of you. It makes who you are when you are free to relax uneven. And this is where I go back to ‘trickier proposition’ thought. Who we are is being constantly pulled at by the environments within which we reside. And I mean constantly. Work is discussing bringing ‘your whole self’ (which is ludicrous), social media discusses things in a brutally one-dimensional context and even social community discusses community cohesiveness in some very ‘us versus them’ narratives. I would suggest before social media having a ‘self-narrative’ that was a bit easier to narrate was, well, a bit easier and home, as I am discussing it, was a bit easier to have.

In part I think I am discussing a bastardized psychological version of “the mirroring hypothesis.” The mirroring hypothesis is that an organization will correspond to the technical patterns of dependency in the work being performed. In other words, for today’s piece, you will begin to mirror the patterns of dependency your ‘self’ is delivering here, there and everywhere. This is also a derivative of McLuhan’s “we shape the tools and the tools shape us.” Let me be clearer. Your home becomes unrecognizable as you are being reshaped by mirroring everything you are doing everywhere.

All of this to circle back to home is where you can be free to be you and do what you want. Given everything I have just written I imagine I would have to suggest home is not a place, but a space in time. What I mean by that is there are moments (or spaces) in time – they can be shorter or longer – in which you are at home with yourself and you have the freedom to be who you are. This is kind of an important thought (I think) because home can be fleeting and in today’s world it can seem incredibly far away sometimes. The world can make our ‘home’, well, less identifiable if we are not careful. We can even kind of forget what that freedom really is and lose sight of what our home truly is. That is, if we are not careful. And I believe having a home, in some sense, is really really important.

Look. Go online and you will have access to, simultaneously, gobs of pieces on personal branding and exactly at the same time gobs of pieces on loss of sense of self (depression, esteem, purpose, etc.). It is like the former is being offered as a solution to the latter. And its not. Home is the solution. We all need a home. A home in which we know who we are, what we are, and can relax and bit all of it and, at its best, with someone who accepts it all. People will suggest authenticity of self, others will speak of being genuine, heck, Shakespeare suggests “be true to thineself”, all I suggest is home. Find your moments of home and visit home as often as you can. The world demands you leave home and even encourages you to stay away from home, I will not suggest you can never leave your home, the world doesn’t work that way, all I suggest is make sure you have a home and know it is your home. Because, in the end, that is where your truest freedom not only resides but offers your touchstone to freedom when you are away. Ponder.

=========

“The world is too big and too intricate to conform to our ideas of what it should be like.

Just because we invent myths and theories to explain away the chaos we’re still going to live in a world that’s older and more complicated than we’ll ever understand.”

Moby

===========

“The World is a very complex system.

It is easy to have too simple a view of it, and it is easy to do harm and to make things worse under the impulse to do good and make things better.”

Kenneth Boulding

==========

Well. Today, while reading some trite business fortune cookie wisdom pulled from some gazzillion selling business book, I thought of the day I said “I worry we are killing the next generation of business thinkers with simplistic tripe” to a famous internationally renowned business book author. I did it at while on a panel at some convention in the early 2000’s. I said it <after holding my thoughts for too long> as I listened to simplistic soundbite advice being shared under the guise of “sage wisdom to enhance everyone’s success.”

I followed my statement with:

“Business is messy. Business is complex. It seems to me that those of us who have navigated the messiness have a responsibility to not undersell the messiness & complexity nor oversell simplicity.”

Needless to say it wasn’t one of my more popular moments.

Needless to say it was one of my better professional moments.

Ok. Business is made up of a mixture of skills, personalities and attitudes. Success is most often dictated by alignment of skills, personalities and attitudes, or, some special mix of all. It is that mix, or blend, of all those things which is well, frankly, an absolute bitch to make happen. That said. Let me point out three reasons why business is such a difficult complex unwieldy thing and trite soundbite wisdom rarely helps:

• Building a successful business is rarely about some wide open “white space” awaiting your arrival.

• People. You need people. You almost always have to incorporate people into your evil plan for success <and those who most desperately desire to help most often have their own evil plans for success>

• Dealing with what you have is significantly different than creating what you want <and how the initial recipe is different than the ongoing recipe>

Let me explain each.

• The white space myth:

Business success, generally speaking, comes down to one of two things (a) am I going to build a market for my idea, or (b) am I going to steal some of the existing market for my idea. Needless to say neither of those sits in some dormant white space awaiting your presence.

You either create white space by elbowing some asshats out of your way or simply walk through the front door of the homes of others and steal all their shit <that was a metaphor … you do not really do that>. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try and be different or offer some unique aspects <if you can> but more often than not it is all about being sure you are distinct, be relentlessly persistent in communicating your distinctness and offer something that delivers value after it is purchased.

Uhm. No trite soundbites there and I have pretty much told you everything you need to know. Ponder.

• People who want to help <but you shouldn’t let them>:

Help is always available. And self proclaimed ‘disruptive/innovative’ help almost even more so. Pick a topic and go online. I can almost guarantee you will get over a million results <you actually get 31.8 million in .59 seconds> of people discussing “disruptive” ideas to facilitate progress. Many of those people are for hire. The majority are smart, articulate and have boundless energy, uhm, for their version of progress.

Finding people who assist in forwarding the progress of your idea is, frankly, not easy <although it seems like it should be>. Even more difficult is incorporating change agents or what we far too often call disrupters. It is challenging … tempting for sure … but challenging.

Soundbite experts will throw out a gazillion people management thoughts on ‘center everyone on the purpose’ and a shitload of ‘horizon direction focus’ thinking, but I gotta tell ya, I can put the biggest fucking beautiful target up on the wall to aim for but if the people I got cannot, and will not, shoot arrows at it — the target is a beautiful piece of art on the wall and nothin’ else. Ponder.

• Deals with reality and creation:

Soundbite advisors spend a shitload of their energy on ‘bringing your idea to life.’ Not a whole shitload of them invest a lot of energy discussing “what do I do once it is actually breathing.” In other words: what the hell do I do with this Frankenstein?

Huh? What experts neglect to tell you is that all that fine planning and smart implementation rarely ends up creating exactly what you intended creating in the beginning. You will naturally adapt to some things and course correct the best you can as you navigate survival <and that dynamic marketplace which doesn’t have any static white space – see my 1st point>.

At its most basic creating is about making some deals, and dealing with, reality as it gets thrown in your face and at your feet <this means you can trip over a shitload of things>. Some people call this “adapting”, I do not, I call it deal making with the world. Maybe think of creating business like striking a nuclear arms-control agreement. Simplistically the deal is the means, not the end itself, and success simply means everyone keeps their nukes they just don’t use them. But the real point is that business is rarely developed with “dealing” central to success. It is more often the idea <which motivates the energy and company/business>. Deals are simply the way you protect the business idea. What soundbite is there for how to navigate the typical business idea of “mutually beneficial transactions?”

There is none.

You deal with dealing one by one the best you can all the while trying to not lose sight of the desired objective <which can be covered in a deep fog on occasion>. Ponder that one a bit longer than the first 2.

Anyway.

The next generation of business leaders deserve experienced people who attempt to explain complexity rather than serve up trite simplistic soundbites which over time simply amount to a steaming pile of bullshit. While I have a bunch of concerns with regard to what we are, and are not, teaching the next generation of business thinkers the one I am mostly concerned with resides in the simplistic shit shared by multimillion dollar business authors and the hundreds of books you can buy which all offer “simplistic advice for business success.”

There is absolutely nothing simple about business. Misrepresenting reality, the business truth, should be called out and chastised even if it is some high falutin’ author of famous business books. We owe it to the next generation of thinkers to teach the complex and not some trite soundbites. That is, as I mentioned earlier, the deal we need to make with the reality of the business future. All that said. I worry we are killing the next generation of business thinkers.

——–

“To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world.”

Dr. Seuss

——-

Well.

It occurred to me when I was writing “giving yourself away” that I had, with the best of intentions, shared a selfish perspective on giving yourself away and that there is an unselfish perspective. Yes. There is unselfish giving yourself away. These are the people who simply help people, giving pieces of themselves away, because … well … that is what they do and who they are.

These people, the few, have a gift.

I know of one for sure .. probably a couple.

The gift is that they always seek to give a piece of themselves away if they see someone in pain, burdened by something, or just see a person needing to know that there is someone in the world who cares.

They do this regardless of the other person being friend or foe or even known or unknown. They simply seek to, metaphorically, give a piece of themselves away to insure the other person has something good to hold on to when things look or feel bad.

What this means is, without trying to be the world to one person, they often end up being just that <even if but just for a moment>.

This is a gift.

It is a gift in that these people have an unending capacity to give themselves away.

I think in biology it is called regeneration. The body’s ability to give a piece away and have it regrow on the body. That is a gift these people have. It is a gift because they never get exhausted giving themselves away piece by piece. It is a gift because they never lose enough of themselves to not have more pieces to give away.

—

“You will leave a little piece of yourself with everyone you imagine,” he said.

“You will get exhausted trying to give yourself away.”

So. Giving yourself away and never getting exhausted.

I think I will call this unselfish capacity. It can be called unselfish because of something called “needs.”

We all have needs.

Needs, in the harshest light, pretty much stand in the spotlight of selfishness.

And, yet, the people with the gift I am speaking of seem to have such a huge unselfish capacity that their own needs seemed to get squeezed out of the selfish spotlight and are willing to stand to the side in the shadows.

Yeah. That is the gift these people have.

There is another aspect of the unselfish capacity.

I will call it the ‘saving someone’ aspect.

My perspective on this one is mainly a business perspective.

When I managed groups and departments of people I loved picking up other managers ‘discards.’ The staff that they had given up on as too flawed or unmanageable. At that time, in my mind, no one wasn’t manageable. I believed as a manager I could ‘save anyone & everyone.’ But when I began managing companies and larger organizations I found I didn’t have the capacity to ‘save everyone.’ I became a harsher judge and jury with regard to staff.

I mention this because not too long ago I told a co-worker who was evaluating a potential hire, with some glaringly obvious cultural fit challenges, that ‘you can’t save everyone.’  He looked at me and said “I know … but why not try?”

The only answer I could give is that ‘if you give too much of yourself away in doing so you end up exhausted … or a shell of your former self having given too much of yourself away.’

Silly me.

I forgot that I am not everyone.

I had forgotten there are people with a gift. An unselfish capacity of which I do not have. These people not only believe they can ‘save everyone’, but have the capacity to actually try to do so. That, my friends, is a gift.

Anyway.

The ‘giving yourself away unselfishly’ people.

The world needs these people.

We needed them in the past. We need them in the present. We will need them in the future.

I imagine I owe an apology to these few gifted people for what I wrote in my original giving yourself away post.

Instead of apologizing I offer this post and the words you just read.

Giving yourself away is tricky.

And not everyone has the same capacity, or gift, to do it and do it sincerely with no emotional baggage attached to the giving.

So. Appreciate the few who can.

—

“You will leave a little piece of yourself with everyone you imagine,” he said.

“You will get exhausted trying to give yourself away.”

————-

“I wonder how much of what weighs me down is not mine to carry.”

Aditi

——————–

“I ruined myself for a lot of people that weren’t even worth it.”

Unknown

================

Ok. I like every single one of the quotes I began with because they’re not blaming anyone else for their problems. That said. While this topic is mostly about ‘self’, let me be clear, keeping yourself whole is one of the most difficult challenges in Life.

Why?

Well. We all have a tendency to give little pieces of ourselves away — with good intentions <most of the time>. And then there will be times you have a piece taken away.

Regardless.

If you are not careful not only do you get tired, but you have nothing left to give.

Oh.

And at exactly the same time you run the risk of accepting some shit from other people and end up having to carry it around <along with your own shit>. This shit is not only their problems or issues, but more dangerously — their perceptions and attitudes.

Uhm. The ‘what they believe’ type shit.

I will note here that other people’s thoughts, perceptions & attitudes can be the heaviest burden you can ever assume. So while you give yourself away piece by piece you are inevitably gathering up pieces of other people. When things get completely out of balance this means you can actually be carrying around more of other people <and their wacky opinions> then your own.

Scary, huh?  Kind of makes you hesitate to give yourself away.

Ok.

Maybe this means I am talking about being selfish. And actually finding a positive aspect of selfish. Because, yes, there is a twinge of selfishness in deciding to not give yourself away.

I say that because there are always people wanting a piece of you.

Especially if you are worth a shit.

But even if you are not worth a shit other people are always in need of something more than what they have and will always seek to get what they need.

Sometimes this is meant with good intentions.

Sometimes it clearly is with bad intentions.

Intentions or not, at all times, if you ‘play’, you give yourself away.

What this means is that if you are not very very <very> careful you can ruin yourself by giving yourself away. I say ‘very careful’ because it can happen piece by piece. So ‘being careful’ brings me back to the selfish thought.

You have a right to set respectful boundaries.

You have a right to decide when to give something away, of yourself, and when not to.

You have a right to tell the world “I have nothing left to give.”

You have a right to take care of yourself, your whole self, first.

———-

“It’s okay to care about yourself the most.

It’s okay to do what’s healthy for YOU. When someone hits you, it’s okay to hit back and then ask them what the hell they expected.

It’s okay. You are not obligated to sit there and smile and swallow every bit of shit everyone heaps on you.

You are more than furniture, you’re more than window dressing, you’re not their shiny toy.

You’re human, and you have the right to say “That was shitty of you”.

You have a right to say “Let me feed that back to you; tell me, how does it taste?”

You have a right to protest your own mistreatment and set boundaries for respectful interactions.

The rest of the world doesn’t realize you have this right, and they will act offended and appalled when you exercise it, but it is yours.”

SonneillonV

———

And maybe that is what not giving yourself comes down to. The right to set your own boundaries and rules for interaction.

Now. This will confuse the world on occasion.

Why?

“The rest of the world doesn’t realize you have this right, and they will act offended and appalled when you exercise it, but it is yours.”

But you gotta do it or, well, you give yourself away.

Giving yourself away can be exhausting.

Giving yourself away does not always translate into ‘getting back something of equal value.’

Giving yourself away can ruin you.

Look. In the end. I am certainly not suggesting lack of compassion or not embracing a giving nature or even a belief that giving yourself away doesn’t have returns <actualization, esteem, gratification, etc.>.

However.

I am suggesting that if you give yourself way piece by piece to anyone and everyone who asks … well … you run the risk of no longer being whole.

In other words. the essential parts that make up the whole have been given away.

That’s not good nor valuable to people who really do need your help.

So. I am suggesting that it is okay to be a little selfish, maybe self serving, when it comes to giving yourself away.

=======

“This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: At the time, no one knew what was coming.”

Haruki Murakami

 =====

Well. “Looking back” <or ‘looking backwards’> is a timeless tradition in second guessing and seeking blame as well as even some forward thinking as we try and extrapolate from past learning some speculative future..

All that said;  “at that time no one knew what was coming.”

Yup.

Think about it.

You can be pessimistic <and be proven right … or wrong>.

You can be optimistic <and be proven right … or wrong>.

You can plan incessantly and smartly <and the plans can work perfectly … or go awry>.

You can make it up as you go <and it works perfectly … or all goes wrong>.

In general you are guessing, or, dealing in probabilities rather than certainties.

Sure.

You can make an educated guess and the odds may be higher or lower based on what you decide to do, but someone is lying if they say “I knew it was going to end up that way.”

They did not know.

They guessed <and possibly guessed well>.

Here is a ponderable factoid.

‘History teaches by analogy, not identity.’

<Hank Kissinger>

Analogy is not a blueprint of what will be. People tend to mistake a study of history, or a historical moment, for proof of what is to come. They are often sorely proven wrong.  And, in fact, those proven right have the benefit of going backwards and connecting dots <even when the connection is tenuous at best> to prove why they were right.

Hmmmm … once again. A reminder. “No one knew what was coming.” <corollary?: sure is easier to know what came>

Regardless <here is the entire thought from Kissinger>.

—

History teaches by analogy, not identity.

This means that the lessons of history are never automatic, that they can be apprehended only by a standard which admits the significance of a range of experience, that the answers we obtain will never be better than the questions we pose.

No profound conclusions were drawn in the natural sciences before the significance of sensory experience was admitted by what was essentially a moral act.

No significant conclusions are possible … without an awareness of the historical context. For societies exist in time more than in space. At any given moment a state is but a collection of individuals, as positivist scholars have never wearied of pointing out.

But it achieves identity through the consciousness of a common history. This is the only “experience” nations have, their only possibility of learning from themselves.

History is the memory of states. To be sure, states tend to be forgetful.

It is not often that nations learn from the past, even rarer that they draw the correct conclusions from it. For the lessons of historical experience, as of personal experience, are contingent.

They teach the consequences of certain actions, but they cannot force recognition of comparable situations. 

Henry Kissinger <Diplomacy>

—

What a powerful thought.

… teach the consequences of certain actions, but they cannot force recognition of comparable situations.

Once again: cannot force recognition of comparable situations.

I love it. So often we suggest ‘this has happened before’ and … well … yeah … kind of.

Maybe it is just ‘close’.

But close only counts with hand grenades <and horse shoes>.

Ultimately you are, well, simply assessing the echoes of history.

You may listen to the echoes of history, but until they walk in to your life you will not truly recognize who and what they are.

—

“I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by and into our lives.”

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

 —

Studying history is just like Dickens says.

You are inevitably sitting alone listening, listening to the echoes of the footsteps of those who have walked before and envisioning, from those echoes, who may be coming into your life.

That is it.

No more. No less.

In the end.

I believe all of us would probably like to have a better sense of how to plan for the future. To better understand the best and proper actions to take to maximize the future in some form or fashion. To be better at assessing probabilities so that cross rods type decisions become more ‘different paths’ rather than ‘crossroads.’

Most of us, trying to do the best we can, most often start by examining the past to assess actions which we believe are a reflection of things affecting the future. In other words, trying to understand consequences for our decisions yet to be made.

The intent is good … and true.

However. Misguided.

We should never confuse honest good intent with ‘what is right’ or even worse ‘what will be’. i.e., certainty. Intentions are simply that — a reflection of intent. Sometimes intent begets some outcome, sometimes not. And intent doesn’t guarantee a good outcome.

Anyway.

The echoes of footsteps are context. But they are simply echoes.

And as for the future?

We simply hear the echoes of footsteps but never meet their owners until they actually enter our lives. And, frankly, you cannot control all that ‘are coming by and by into our lives.’

Oh.

And at each point in time … no one knew what was coming.

A sobering Life truth for all to remember. It is a reminder that uncertainty looms ahead of every one of us.

Mr. Magorium:

“37 seconds.”

==

Molly Mahoney:

“Great.

Well done.

Now we wait.”

==

Mr. Magorium:

“No.

We breathe.

We pulse.

We regenerate.

Our hearts beat.

Our minds create.

Our souls ingest.

37 seconds, well used, is a lifetime.”

–

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder emporium (here is the clip )

Well. 37 seconds … well used … is a lifetime. This is a big thought. Big enough that I think most people will balk at it.

We breathe.

We pulse.

We regenerate.

Our hearts beat.

Our minds create.

Our souls ingest.

Most people will balk because they can’t figure out how to do what they want to do even within 2 hours/7 days a week. In fact. I imagine most people think of ‘doing things’ in terms of … “oh, I only wish I had time to … bla bla blaaaa …”

Or.

“I wish i had more time.”

<followed by a wha wha waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ... that’s whining in case you need a definition>

Look.

Here’s the deal.

Everyone has the same amount of time.

We all get 24 hours in a day. We all get 365 days every year <except one year and it is really only one month anyway>.

How we choose to spend that time is about prioritizing. Figuring out what is most important to us <and, yeah, I said ‘us’ and not someone else and responsibilities and stuff like that>

In fact I would argue how you spend the time is kind of irrelevant, it’s more the fact that you recognize you actually have a choice with what you do with your time and, well, choose.

In fact. Maybe even choose what to do with the next 37 seconds.

Anyway.

We make choices.

We live with the consequences.

Use your time for something useful <or don’t>.

That’s up to you.

Once again.

99% of the time the choice is yours.

99.9% of the time I would argue the next 37 seconds are yours to choose what to do with.

But, please, please don’t tell people you don’t have enough time. And if you want to argue you with me that it is impossible to do anything useful in 37 seconds I will argue with you that the best thinking, the best living, the best creativity, is done within constraints and 37 seconds may feel like a huge constraint, or conversely, it could be the hugest freeing amount of time you have ever had.

Just ponder.

Because 37 seconds … when well used … is a lifetime.

============

“All cruelty springs from weakness.”

―

Seneca

================

“All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.”

Thomas Pynchon

===============

“Normalizing your boss.”

I would say 95% of us who have had the opportunity to weave our way through corporate America to reach a senior level position have been forced to normalize the behavior of at least one of our bosses.

Some more than others, but in some ways you become a normalizer, or a translator or maybe sometimes you simply sweep up the mess they left behind. That’s just what you do … uhm … assuming that boss actually has some redeeming value. As you get closer and closer to the most senior positions it becomes more and more obvious that gaining responsibility doesn’t always smooth out the edges of someone, but rather more often makes that person lean harder on/into the specific aspects of themselves which they can use to meet the growing responsibilities. Yeah. Many leaders don’t “round out their skills & character” <and become a well-rounded leader>, but rather hone the pointed skills that provide value or increase their power <sacrificing some other skills & attributes along the way>.

Ah. But then you run up against the ‘bull shitter in chief.’

Maybe they got their position through some family contact. Maybe they were a psychopathic ‘kill or be killed’ employee who successfully killed off any competent competitors for the position. Maybe out of sheer organizational incompetence they rose to a position in which they are completely unqualified for.

All they have in their hip pocket is bullshit.

But they are your boss.

Whew. Defending selectively incompetent behavior is one thing. Defending ongoing bull shit is another. Why? The former can actually enhance your reputation <and improve your own skills as you provide solutions in real time> while the latter only diminishes your reputation.

Yeah. I am sure some people will debate what I just wrote, but I would suggest they will only end up quibbling over my phrasing and not the truth behind the thought.

Reputation is not a simple concept. Your reputation is made up of a variety of things which means you can fuck up in one place, but offering a strength in another situation simply builds your reputation unevenly <which can be managed if you are self-aware>. The problem with normalizing a bull shitter’s incompetent behavior is that you aren’t shoring up selective incompetence/deficiencies you are actually forced to normalize their behavior by offering an alternative truth to whatever bullshit truth they advocated on all fronts – not selective.

I imagine the majority of us have never really faced this either <a> as a full onslaught from an incompetent boss — because most organizations weed out this problem fairly efficiently or <b> for long <most bull shitters get exposed by ambitious less senior competent no-nonsense fairly quickly>.

But, yet, I tend to believe in our nightmare scenarios in our minds we worry about what we would do if faced with an ongoing incompetent bull shitter boss scenario.

Personally <and anyone who knows me will probably nod their head and go ‘yeah’> I wouldn’t be able to do it. I would actually call bullshit <and get fired or ‘eased into a different responsibility’>. But, even that said, having been in a quasi-position like this you have a tendency to take on each bullshit situation as discrete from another and avoid any real pattern of behavior until forced to actually face a pattern of behavior. That is how we deal with it … and that is also the personal risk we run as we ignore the larger situation rationalizing it in our own minds as ‘discrete scraps of irresponsible incompetent boss behavior.’

All this come to mind as I think about Donald J Trump.

Let me use his first self-proclaimed “big foreign trip” <which fostered the image of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure … or Pee Wee’s Big adventure  or even Pooh’s Grand Adventure – pick your poison> back several years ago <simply because there are so many to choose from but this was possibly the first which encapsulated the challenges people around him would face> .

Beyond the fact the trip was bookended with a self-proclaimed “big foreign trip” and a self-proclaimed self-reported “home run”, in between there were a number of cringe-able moments in which people were demanded to stand up and become responsible for defending or explaining some tone-deaf remark, some historically ignorant comment or some insensitive gaffe that the president did over the entire big adventure.

Was it the bullying body language he demonstrated at the NATO summit, shoving aside the Prime Minister of Montenegro? <a small country that I am fairly sure the president has no clue where it is>

Was it his apparent unawareness of where Israel is located, an ignorance displayed when he informed an audience of Israelis that he’d “just got back from the Middle East”?

Was it his seeming indifference to the difference between “Islamist” and “Islamic” in front of an Islam audience <a mistake he blamed on exhaustion on the 2^nd day of a trip … “does he have the stamina?”>

Was it his belief that after stating for months that NATO was obsolete that it was unnecessary to verbally state USA unequivocally stood with its NATO partners?

Was it his constant misstatements with regard to how NATO actually works?

Was it after a less than 30 minute visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, which <or any Holocaust museum> has a nasty habit of bringing people to tears or, at minimum, some deep reflection with regard to humanity and the sometimes startling cruelty humans can inflict upon one another … he left an absurdly out of touch positive note in the memorial’s Book of Remembrance – “It is a great honor to be here with all my friends – so amazing and will never forget!”

Was it his odd alternative universe in which he suggests he has “righted people’s views of where America stands with friends & enemies after a misguided 8 Obama years” where Saudi Arabia is a good friend <let’s avoid they have none of the freedoms America typically support> and where Germany is described as “bad” <albeit only their trade deals … uhm … and their views on immigration … uhm … and their views on globalism>.

Was it his unflinching ability to lie to the face of the world’s newest democratic leader Macron by unequivocally falsely, in a sincere voice, stating “I was for you.”

Or, finally, was it the overarching sadness <to most Americans> in watching the seeming shift to ‘pragmatic relationships policy” <ones in which money exchange defines who we like and who we do not like> in which we find ourselves watching our leaders partying with disciplined non democratic autocrats and constantly showing uneasiness and sincere lack of warmth in interactions with the world’s finest democratic leaders.

Sigh.

Here is what I know <about not only Trump, but normalizing a boss’s behavior>.

If I were working for Trump I would find it hard to read any news, but, particularly European newspapers, without cringing and certainly being embarrassed. But if Trump were my boss where I would be most concerned is that he would be using me to lend some legitimacy as he behaved in some less-than-legitimate behavior.

And that is where one needs to step back and worry about their reputation.

Because lending credibility for a boss who has selective competency is different than lending credibility for a … well … “bull shitter in chief” boss.

As one article put it well … “seasoned people simply lend an air of occasional competence to an otherwise shambolic White House. By appearing before the cameras, looking serious and speaking rationally, they add a veneer of normality to this administration.”

And maybe that is where this whole thing ends up.

It is not about us, the people and media, accepting Donald J Trump’s behavior or getting numbed into believing it is normal … it will be about experienced competent people deciding how much they want to normalize his behavior. This whole situation is not really about a decision on what is best for America <although they will certainly be forced into thinking about that>, but rather their own reputation.

Good competent people will be standing there knowing they can contribute to <a> doing what is right and <b> herding an incompetent boss … both of which America in a larger context benefits … and, yet, they stand there watching their own reputations slowly slip away … drip by drip … word by word.

Good competent people can normalize selective incompetence, but they will struggle to normalize a ‘bull shitter’ whose only competence is ongoing ignorance. At some point people will begin questioning your own competence as you continuously articulate some semblance of nonsensical normalcy and they will definitely start questioning … well … your integrity or character.

And then what do you do? Because, in the end, that is what you are left with – just you & your character.

Why?

Because, frankly, no matter how skilled you are a shitload of people in this world are just as experienced as you are and a lot of people are skilled and competent just like you therefore you get judged, ultimately, on what you did when faced with a situation — did you speak up?

Did you defend the wrong and indefensible? Did you do what was right?

I am not suggesting this is easy.

In fact a good bull shitter can offer such an elegant smoke screen it can offer the competent some cover so they can offer up some truth and competence in a way that … well … is true & competent.

However, in the end, the difficulty resides in the smoke itself.

Because at some point every competent person associated with a bull shitter is asked to explain the smoke … and … well … how do I explain the smoke?

You can’t. And, worse? You cannot put out the fire.

Good people, no matter how good, will choke on the smoke eventually.

….. choice when working for a bullshitter in chief ……

And, let’s be clear, no one wants to see good people die.

It is painful to watch.

It is painful to watch good competent people being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve someone, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.”

That is the personal choice one makes when normalizing a boss … how much smoke is there and will I choke from the smoke they make?

I cannot offer a well-defined “here is how you know and what you should do” today because this is a personal choice. But, no matter who you are and where you are, watching good competent people standing in the smoke being demanded to define a smoke, not of their own making, is painful. And sad.

===========

“It was suicide.

Others killed themselves with poison or with a revolver.

I killed myself with minutes and hours.”

Henri Barbusse

========================

“I love that word.

Forever.

I love that forever doesn’t exist, but we have a word for it anyway, and use it all the time.

It’s beautiful and doomed. “

Viv Albertine

============

So. Forever is one of those wacky philosophical thoughts which seem to inhabit the minds of almost everyone in Life.

Forever is almost like our one main go-to tactic to wrestle with how Time seems to fuck with our lives.

Suffice it to say we love the idea of forever <on some things>, hate the idea of forever <on some things>, constantly apply forever to time related to specific events and actions and, yet, we kill the entire concept of forever by using a relentless onslaught of minutes & hours.

Talk about dying a death of thousand cuts, that;’s what we do to forever with seconds, minutes, hours, milestones, result-focus, to-do lists, and, well, this list is fairly long.

Now. Just because we mangle the entire concept of forever doesn’t prove that it isn’t important.

In fact. We crazy people, who seem to adore anything that is conceptually intangible and its ‘bigness/infiniteness’, seemingly go out of our way to define everything in tangible ways and end up applying, in some really crazy ways, forever to the most random things.

A feeling can be forever.

A stop light can last forever.

A class can last forever.

A day at work goes on forever.

And, yes, 37 seconds can be forever.

37 seconds.

Yeah.

37 seconds.

As Mr. Margorium said “It is a lifetime if you let it.”

Or.

One second.

Yeah.

One second.

Alice in Wonderland suggests it is forever.

——————-

Alice:                    “How long is forever?

White Rabbit:    “Sometimes, just one second”

<Tim Burton … from Alice in Wonderland movie but never in Lewis Carroll’s books>

—————————–

The true weirdness of our odd relationship with ‘forever’, which is infinite, is that our attempts to attach forever to things finite in nature more often than not it is an excruciating doomed finiteness definition.

And maybe even worse? While some people kill themselves with poison most of us slowly kill ourselves with forevers.

Which is really odd because, if asked, most people will chuckle, shrug their shoulders and say something like:

“ … nothing actually lasts forever.”

Crazy, isn’t it?

While we attach forever to the most miniscule of minuscule, forever and a day killing ourselves minute by minute and hour by hour, we don’t even fucking actually believe in it.

Personally, I think it is quite possible that maybe nothing is ever meant to last.

What I do know for sure is that the world is constantly changing and evolving and remaking itself maybe in some weird attempt to and make itself last forever. And maybe that is where we struggle the most with forever.

Within forever there is a constant ebb and flow of endings and beginnings and making, remaking & unmaking, infinite & finite. Forever, in its infiniteness, contains an infinite amount of multitudes.

That said.

Where do you draw the line of what is forever and what is not?

Is forever simply a complex intricate web of endings & beginnings?

Could forever simply be complexity defined in a simplistic way?

Shit.

Here is what I know. Pretty much everything has an end.

Oh. I also know this, while forever does not exist, it does exist as one very very important thing — possibility.

When you begin something, let’s say something good, something positive we have a tendency to want to attach forever to it.

“I wish this would last forever.”

Now.

We know it won’t.

But the possibility it will?

The hope it could?

Wow.

That is powerful stuff.

Here is a Life truth.

Forever can be found in anything. One second, 37 seconds, a lifetime, a thought, a feeling and even an experience.

The truth is that forever is found in one’s own willingness to have & accept forever.

It is a matter of decision. Basically, you decide your forever.

You decide to accept “the beautiful & the doomed” of that which is forever.

As for me? What do I like about forever?

Forever permits us to think the unthinkable.

Forever permits us to think … well … there is a chance.

Forever permits us to imagine fragile things living on and on in a world which is fairly unforgiving to fragility.

Forever, even though it sounds big in its infiniteness, can be the small key to greatness, progress and opportunity.

And the best part of forever?

Forever, in its best form, is powered by hope.

Well, maybe this is a good place to end because what is more powerful and infinite and timeless then hope? If hope doesn’t make you believe in forever, what will?

 ================

“Every villain is a hero in his own mind.”

―

Tom Hiddleston

==============

“The modern spirit is a hesitant one.

Spontaneity has given way to cautious legalisms, and the age of heroes has been superseded by a cult of specialization. We have no more giants; only obedient ants.”

―

Roger Lowenstein

============

Ok. I get asked a shitload about why people do the things that they do. It seems, to me, that people inherently slot behavior into good or bad, smart or stupid and even villain or hero.

Oh. If it were only that simple.

In general:

We would wish our heroes are endowed with a fierce intellect, great <though not infallible> personal integrity, toughness tempered with essential compassion for the less fortunate, and a sense of humor.

We would like our heroes to fiercely attack life in a way that suggests they never concede that anything is someone else’s problem.

And, yet, people <who are the heroes & villains> are naturally complex and almost always filled with contradictions.In fact. The contradictions are relentless. The insidious aspect of the contradictions relentlessness is that they almost make people rethink that being a good person is relative.

The truth is that sometimes the heroes we see in today’s society are so visibly flawed it makes you think about all the moralistic mumbo jumbo we middle class white folk voice with regard to what is right and what is wrong as just being mumbo jumbo bullshit. In fact, from a moralistic standpoint, we start defining some behaviors & characteristics as .. uhm .. as if there is a difference between bad things and bad things.

Its bad. Villianry <I made up that word> gets normalized in some wacky way. What I find oddest by that is doing the right thing is actually a basic innate instinct.

We are all born with it.

We all certainly embrace the concept.

We all actually enjoy doing it.

We all like it in our heroes.

And, yet, it seems like more and more we are hesitating to demand it of our heroes <let alone ourselves).

I hesitate to suggest that Society has created this situation. Society, and culture, has certainly done its darn best to showcase the fact there is no such thing as a perfect person and that we should embrace the flaws in people.

And, for the most part, I agree with that.

But. What seems to be happening is that while the spirit of goodness and what is right and what we know we should demand from a hero <which shouldn’t contain any villain> remains, something is making the modern mind hesitate to make the demands of perfection with regard to “good” in our heroes. It almost seems like we hesitate to ask for what we want and in doing so we accept, sometimes even embrace, compromise in our heroes. (ponder that last sentence for a minute)

In our hesitation we are permitting some villains, posing as heroes in their own minds, to step forward and pose as heroes.

=====

“We’re born into a world where the rules are already defined.  The game is out there. It’s either play or get played.”

Omar

=====

These villains, fake heroes, choose to play the game their own way by authentically portraying a style that allows them to be true to themselves and their personal beliefs (which are characteristics of a villain but cloaked as some hero to people).

Sigh.

But they are ants and we should be seeking giants.

We have to because these ants diminish us in a slightly insidious way.

Insidious? Yeah. It’s not that in our hesitation we decide to do the wrong thing, but rather in our silence the ‘less than the right things’ steps in and assumes control.

Oh. Please note that I purposefully say ‘diminish.’

I am certainly not going to suggest that this societal driven hesitation eliminates doing the right thing. That would be silly. That would suggest the spirit, modern or otherwise, can actually be extinguished and I do not believe that is possible. Spirit can be dampened, it can be smothered, it can be diminished, but it cannot be expunged from who and what we are as humans. But the truly insidious poison offered by ants?

It creates situations in which deserving giants receive undeserved criticism and are cut down in the attempt to make them ant sized.

My point today?

We should demand giants not ants.

We should not accept villains posing as heroes.

And while I would love to suggest that all of us should seek to be giants for today I simply state that in a difficult complex world we should not seek simple ants to be our heroes and light the way, but rather seek the real giants among us to help guide us.

Giants of the spirit of what is right and doing what is right. And, yeah, we should seek giants every day, every hour and every minute.

Society sometimes seems to be stealing our opportunity to place real heroes in their rightful place as a giant by permitting some confusion between villainry & heroism under the guise of ‘no one is perfect’. This is bad. REALLY bad.

Here is what I believe.

I believe we are in an age of heroes where society encourages less than heroic everyday behavior.

I believe we are in an age demanding giants where society encourages us to be ants.

I believe the modern spirit is not naturally a hesitant one.

I believe we are in an age where doing the right thing should be demanded — in Life & in business.

I believe we are in an age where we should be seeking to eliminate divisiveness, eliminate restrictions on ‘right behavior’ and eliminate the hesitation of the spirit.

Look. I buy the fact no one is perfect and I am even willing to accept that even our heroes can have flaws. But we should demand our heroes to be heroes and not villains who simply believe they are either a hero or offer themselves up as a hero.

There is certainly a complexity and inexactness of good and bad.

There is certainly a complexity and inexactness of the rules that are established ‘by the game of Life’ we play.

There is certainly a complexity and inexactness in Life, society & culture <in and of themselves>.

Yeah. I buy the fact our heroes will always have some complexity and inexactness.

But our heroes should be giants and not ants.

Every villain believes they are a hero in their own mind but, in our minds, we should know a villain can never be a hero. And we should not hesitate to demand a hero to be a hero and not a villain.

================

“If you dig deep enough, you’re going to find that everyone’s a sinner.”

Logan Echolls

================

This about the fact people are imperfect, rarely 100% good, and the fact we all may be a sinner but still good.

** note: I am not using sinner in a religious framed way.

I agree with Logan (who was a character on Veronica Mars) that if you work hard enough you will find something bad, dubious, possibly unethical, in everyone’s past or even present. But you know what? It doesn’t really have to do with ‘sinning’ or being a sinner.  It is just that we all have flaws. Just to be clear. It is most likely if you dig deep enough you will also find everyone is basically the same and we all have hopes & dreams & insecurities. That said. If we accept the fact everyone is a sinner, our past is flawed in some way in which the standard human being would judge it is ‘guilty of something’ then you have to accept the fact no one is innocent.

“No one is innocent … Life is more about how you bear the guilt.”

Jacques Silette

Uhm.

No one is innocent.

Ponder that.

That means every one of us sinners carry some burden of ‘not innocent’. This seems relevant as:

• more and more people in today’s world are meticulously rummaging through other people’s pasts to find moments in which they were ‘guilty’ of something
• more and more people in today’s society appear to investing a lot of energy suggesting they are guilty of little, if not anything

Well. That is kind of bullshit. No one is innocent. We are all guilty of small, medium and even some large things. Therefore. It within that last sentence of the quote in which resides the larger Life thought.

Your life can be defined by how you bear that guilt.

It is the larger Life thought because “defined by” is actually “choices”. All the choices we make everyday in the little and the small as well as in how we judge ourselves, and our actions, and other’s actions. So we make all of these choices, one by one, dozens & hundreds over time, all the while accumulating some aspects of non-innocence.’ From that point on it becomes how we define it:

Do you ignore it?

Do you make excuses?

Do you deny it?

Do you worry about it?

Do you keep it secret?

Do you use it to motivate?

These are questions that reside within each of us <whether we elect to admit that they exist or not>. These are the questions that define how people bear the guilt.

Oh.

The one that is probably most important?

Do you even recognize you are not innocent?

I think in today’s world where we seem to rush to blame people and judge them guilty of something <often justly> we tend to push our own lack of innocence, in whatever degree it may exist, into some dusty corner of our mind. But I also believe there is an even more dangerous thing many people do and that is justifying their own past behavior & actions as ‘not so bad’ which is basically assuming, well, innocence.

What that means is, I imagine, there are many more people who don’t even know they are ‘not innocent’ of something than there are those who bear the guilt. I imagine this because bearing some guilt is a burden. A burden not just as a weight, but it also can bear some emotional erosion aspects if you are not careful.

While those who bear the guilt can sometimes be eaten away from the inside as they think about it, I would suggest there are many more minds being eroded by the unseen, unrecognized & unaccepted shadow of guilt which dogs each step one takes.

This comes to Life in a variety of ways.

It erodes in a way that when shit happens to them <because the guilt actually affects their behavior in some seemingly small ways> they scratch their head and wonder why.

Some of these people think fate is against them.

Many of these people think Life isn’t fair.

Many of these people never look at themselves, or to themselves, as the issue … just everything else.

Many of these people just look at others as ones who should be guilty <“I never did anything that bad”>.

All of that is sad to me. Mostly because people’s burden of guilt is most likely something manageable if the person would only take the time to face it — face the guilt and eliminate that weightless, but diminishing, shadow following them and choose to carry it instead. I honestly do not know if people ignore their ‘lack of innocence’ or place their sin in a third person way <region does this> because they don’t like the thought of it or they don’t know how to explain it or maybe its simple embarrassment or it could even be they DO see the burden and do not want to accept it.

Look.

We all have guilt for something. None of us are innocent. The something could be big or it could be very small. But that is the funny thing about ‘not innocent’ — its size doesn’t matter.

Normal laws of space & weight do not apply to ‘not innocent’. A sliver of ‘not innocent’ can bear the same weight as a mountain of ‘not innocent’.

We should all take a moment, every day in fact, and remind ourselves, especially before we jump to judging others, that if you ignore the degrees & dimensions of the guilty — none of us are innocent.

But, most importantly, once you accept no one is innocent <self included> what truly matters is how one chooses to bear that weight.

“Learn to be what you are, and learn to resign with good grace all that you are not.”

Henry Frederick Emile

In the end. One of the hardest things in the world for anyone is to embrace their flaws, their sin. Each of us ‘are not’ a lot of things. Recognizing those things is actually pretty easy. We notice them all the time. I guess the difficult part is accepting them. and resigning yourself to ‘not being something’ with grace. Being able to do that is a full measure of one’s character. And maybe that is what ‘being a sinner’ or ‘no one is innocent’ is all about – character. To accept our flaws means to accept some burden possibly demands character. I do wish more people would accept we are all not innocent and begin judging people more on how they carry they bear the guilt of their sin.